


A Lingering Smell

by eafay70



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Food, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29697675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eafay70/pseuds/eafay70
Summary: October 2018: Dele won't stop talking about his new contract, so Sonny pranks him with help from Eric, Coco, and other Spurs.
Relationships: Dele Alli/Eric Dier
Kudos: 7
Collections: Drop the Not! 2021





	A Lingering Smell

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sonny Pranks Dele](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/770769) by ItsADrizzit, WhiteHaru37. 
  * In response to a prompt by [ItsADrizzit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsADrizzit/pseuds/ItsADrizzit) in the [DropTheNot_2021](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DropTheNot_2021) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Sonny pranks Dele (with Korean food!), and sometimes other members of Tottenham Hotspur help him out!
> 
> (not!fic is pretty specific with plot and also features Eric Dier, Erik Lamela, and others, but feel free to not include them if it doesn't work out for you in the fic. Also... ignore the part where we talk about dinner. This is part of a thing we're doing called "not!fic dinners". Also... thanks to eafay70 for the not!fic prompt!)
> 
> * * *
> 
> This work was created an example for Drop the Not!, a multi-fandom fanwork challenge where authors create written fanworks that are prompted or inspired by oral not!fic. You can read about it on the AO3 collection (linked above) and [our Dreamwidth](https://drop-the-not.dreamwidth.org/).

_Prologue_

“I’m in the money, I’m in the money…” Dele waved his arms in a vague approximation of dancing, a cheeky grin on his face.

“If only you would learn the rest of that damn song!” Eric groaned semi-melodically.

Dele laughed and gave Eric a peck on the cheek. “You’re just jealous of my shiny new contract, babe. It’s alright. I still love you.”

“I suppose I do, too,” Eric sighed.

Sonny couldn’t help chuckling as Dele exited the room, leaving Eric with an annoyed expression on his face. “He’s been like that for a week!”

“I don’t think I can take much more, Sonny!” Eric groaned again. “I’m happy for him because it’s what he deserves, but he just won’t talk about anything else!”

“I can barely get a word in edgewise about Brady and Wilson!” Harry noted. A chorus of similar sentiment rose up among the other Spurs players.

“Well, we need to do something!” Sonny declared. “I have an idea! I’ll text all of you about it after church this weekend.”

_The following week…_

Sonny walked into the dressing room, his smile as wide as ever. “Hello, everyone!”

“Hi, Sonny…” Harry said slowly. “What’s in the very large container?”

“Food from church! The nice people always give me too much to eat, so I thought we could all have a picnic!”

Hugo shook his head. “No, I don’t think a sudden picnic is a good idea, Sonny. But out of curiosity, what do you have? It smells…”

“Hold up!” Dele interrupted. “I know that smell! It’s super spicy gochujang! No, thanks!”

Sonny burst out in laughter. “You hate it, but you can say its name just right!”

“Yeah, so I can avoid it!”

Everyone else started laughing. It was the perfect cover for Eric to hand Sonny a ring of keys.

_*_  
_1_

“Ugh,” Dele groaned as he got into his car. “Sonny had so much Korean food with him that the smell got on my clothes.”

“Mine, too,” Eric said, subtly patting his pocket to feel the ring of keys Sonny had returned to him. “I wonder what the people at his church think we’re feeding him if they keep giving him so much food.”

Dele shrugged. “I don’t know, babe. But I do know that this car is the best thing I’ve ever purchased.”

“I’m pretty sure you love it more than you love me.” Eric laughed as Dele made no effort to deny it.

A few days later, Dele frowned as he got into his car. “I can still smell the super spicy gochujang!”

“I can’t,” Eric lied, making sure not to look at the car floor. “Maybe your nose is jumping ahead a few minutes to Sonny’s place?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dele scoffed. “Sonny said he was getting pizza today.”

_*_  
_2_

“Harry Hickford, move it!” Dele shouted. “We’re going to be late!”

“Oh, shush!” Harry got into the car, forcing himself not to flinch. “We have plenty of time.”

Dele sighed and started driving to the nightclub. “I told you about Sonny bringing a bunch of Korean food to training, right? I swear I smell it whenever I’m in this car, even though Sonny hasn’t been in it since at least a week before then.”

“I don’t smell anything,” Harry lied. “Maybe you hate the super spicy what’s-it-called so much that you smell it everywhere you go?”

“It’s called gochujang, and it’s not the only thing I smell – I also smell kimchi and fish sauce, which is delicious.” They got to the valet parking and exited the car.

“Argh!” Harry made a show of dropping his wallet, causing its contents to spill. “You go ahead, I’ll catch up.” Once Dele was gone, he picked up his cash and gave a few bills to the valet, along with admittedly strange instructions.

A few hours later, Dele and Harry got the car from the valet. “Ugh!” Dele groaned as he opened the door. “I can smell it already!”

“There’s nothing to smell,” Harry fibbed, turning to the valet. “Right?”

“Right! I didn’t smell a thing!” The valet waited for Dele to get in the car, then held out his palm. Given how terrible the smell was, Harry didn’t really mind giving him a few more bills.

_*_  
_3_

“I should check if it’s a full moon tonight,” Dele said as Coco, Paulo, and Juan got into his car. “That’s the only reason you would have for insisting on me driving you.”

“You know that’s not what happened!” Coco said before switching back to Spanish. His fellow Argentinians apparently considered him very funny, judging from the laughter.

“Say…” Dele made his way out of the parking lot. “Argentinian food wouldn’t leave its smell sticking to you for ages, would it?”

“Sadly, no,” Coco sighed. “I miss the smells very much. Why?”

“I can still smell Sonny’s Korean food, even though it was never in this car!”

The three Argentinians laughed even harder. “You are so annoyed!” Juan managed to say.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, have a laugh,” Dele grumbled.

_*_  
_4_

“The girls will be so happy to see you!” Harry said as he got into Dele’s car.

“Aren’t they a little young to have opinions?” Dele asked, scowling as he started the car. “They’re barely two years old put together, I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh, don’t be such a downer!”

“Sorry,” Dele sighed. “I just… do you smell something in the car?”

“Uh, no,” Harry lied. “Anyway, the girls love their Uncle Dele already! You’ll see!”

“I suppose so.”

_*_  
_5_

“Thanks for driving us, Dele,” Serge said as he and Moussa walked to the car. “I know it’s not near you.”

“It’s not that far,” Dele insisted, unlocking the car. “Hop on in.”

Moussa opened the back door, got in, and yelped. “What on earth is that smell?!”

“You can smell it?!” Dele got into the car, smiling despite the unpleasant odor. “I thought it was just me! Everyone else said they couldn’t smell anything.”

Serge got into the shotgun seat and groaned. “I’m jealous of all of those people, unless they were lying.”

“I have literally never smelled anything this bad,” Moussa said decisively. “I don’t know what it is, but I don’t want to investigate.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Serge said. “There’s no way a reputable car dealer would sell a car smelling like this, so it was probably sabotaged. I hope you figure out who did it so you can make them pay.”

Dele nodded. “I already have some suspects in mind.”

_*_  
_+1_

Dele frowned to himself as he watched Eric and Sonny in the back of the car. Even though Eric usually sat in the front passenger seat, he’d insisted on sitting next to Sonny today so they could “look at each other’s phones and not bother Dele while he was driving.” It was incredibly suspicious, especially since they seemed to be giggling at each other instead of at their phones.

“Ugh, this smell!” Dele whined. “Even Moussa and Serge noticed it!”

This made Sonny giggle even harder. “What smell, Delboy?” Eric asked.

“Oh, we should tell him!” Sonny somehow managed to say.

Dele’s frown turned into a scowl as the suspicions he’d harbored since the ride with Serge and Moussa were confirmed. “Tell me what?”

“We were really annoyed that you wouldn’t stop talking about your new contract, so -” Eric burst out laughing.

“We put super spicy gochujang and kimchi and fish sauce in here!” Sonny cackled.

Dele gripped the steering wheel to resist the urge to react violently. “You put my least favorite foods – fermented foods with lots of spice – in my car?!” The laughter only grew louder. “Right, that’s enough.” He turned on the blinker and drove to the side of the road.

“Um…” Eric stopped laughing. “We’re sorry?”

“Please don’t be mad!” Sonny also stopped laughing. “We won’t do it again!”

“Do both of you have your phones?” Dele asked. After they both nodded, Dele unlocked the doors with a loud click. “Get out.”

Eric’s jaw dropped. “We’re on the M1!”

“You can call a cab. By the time you’re back home, I’ll be calmed down enough to consider forgiving you. Now get out.”

They both sheepishly complied. Dele sighed and got back on the road, wondering if his best bet was to force Eric and Sonny to buy him a new car instead of trying to clean this one.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you have questions about Drop the Not!, feel free to ask me, as I'm one of the mods.


End file.
